


Now You See Me...

by GingerAndHyde



Category: The Invisible Man - H. G. Wells
Genre: Gen, Just a funky invisible dude making mistakes I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:16:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27474148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GingerAndHyde/pseuds/GingerAndHyde
Summary: ...Now you don’t.Jeffrey Griffin turns himself invisible. Big mistake, but he’s having a good time. For now.
Kudos: 8





	Now You See Me...

**Author's Note:**

> Hiii. I don’t know what this is, but I hope you like it.

Jeffrey Griffin was not having a good day. Or life, really, but that’s a longer story than he’d care to share and it’s none of your business, so keep your eyes and ears to yourself, ok? But as of  _ now _ , things were worse than usual. 

His father’s funeral had been a week ago. Frankly? He couldn’t care less. About his dear old man, that is- the bills for the casket, gravesite, and service did weigh on his mind, but his father didn’t deserve a shred of attention, let alone full-on mourning. He lost that privilege the second he decided that sons were best used as punching bags and that salaries were just a means to get more booze, but we digress. Despite not giving a damn about the man himself, the sheer  _ inconvenience _ of it all troubled JG. He didn’t even have the money to get through this.

Which became evident when he received the eviction notice this morning.

So a feeling best verbalized as an obscene yet concise  _ fuck it _ had settled over JG. He had decided to spend his last few days in his flat preparing to run away from his problems in the most spectacular, scientifically marvelous, and-they-said-I-was-mad-well-I’ll-show-them-all way that he could think of.

JG was turning himself invisible. 

He’d spent his entire professional career researching it. Optics, refraction, transparency, even bending light- all known concepts to him. Time to put that knowledge to the test and use it to get away from the sticky situation he was presently in. 

Now, in his sitting-area-turned-laboratory, he’s keeping a close watch on a bubbling test tube with a pair of brilliant garnet-red eyes. He’s waiting for  _ something _ , moving one hand back and forth in thin air above the table as though stroking an animal perched there. A little grey tail rippling in and out of visibility confirms the presence of a cat, albeit a mostly invisible one.

“C’mon,” he mutters under his breath, drumming the fingers of his other hand on the top of the desk restlessly. “Any minute now.” He seems to be growing impatient, looking from the strange substance in the tube (it seems to be somewhere between light and liquid, swirling and floating about in a way that no ordinary chemical would) and the mostly-invisible cat. “What’s it feel like, Fuckstick?”, he muses to the cat bearing that unfortunate name. “You were yowling like I set you on fire last Wednesday.” He seems to be less bothered on the cat’s behalf and more concerned for his own sake. 

A little wind-up kitchen timer on a nearby table goes off. JG kills the flame and moves the test tube from the burner to the rack. The substance inside has become wispy and cloudlike- barely there. He turns off the timer (by which I mean throws it across the room). The contents of the test tube are measured out. About half of the substance is poured into a little metal medicine cup, which JG lifts upwards as though in a toast. “Next round’s on you,” he says dryly to the cat. “Then I’m hopping town, getting that paper published, and making it big. I think I’ll be able to cover our tab then.” The invisible cat meows and hops off the table, knocking an open notebook to the floor. JG is too caught up in the moment to pay any mind, knocking back the medicine cup as though taking a shot. 

He immediately regrets this decision when it feels like his throat just got set on fire. 

Keeling forwards, the rogue scientist lets out a string of colorful expletives and clutches the edge of the table, knuckles white (well, whit _ er, _ seeing as he has albinism) with an iron grip. He grits his teeth and closes his eyes as the burning sensation spreads through his veins, his skin-

And less than a minute after it started, it stops. He takes a breath, opens his eyes, and looks down at his hands- or, rather, the seemingly vacant space in midair where his hands ought to be. 

JG lets out a triumphant, unsteady laugh, stumbling into the water closet. The mirror inside tells the truth: he succeeded. Not an inch of him can be seen other than an empty set of floating clothes, which are quickly torn off. 

“I  _ did it! _ Me! I figured it out!”, he declares victoriously, picking a glass lamp off of a table and throwing it into the wall in the rush of having done the impossible. It interests him, something being thrown by what appears to be nothing, so a chair is overturned by the invisible man. “Oh, Kemp’s not going to know what hit him! And he said- and he said it was impossible. Ha.” A side table is flipped. “I’m going to- I’m going to grab my things and go. Leave. Give it a little time, turn myself back, and- and get famous. And wealthy. Hell, I’ll be a Fellow of the Royal Society before next fall!” He falls into ecstatic, deranged laughter. 

There is a knock at the door.

JG freezes, despite being unseen. He stays as quiet as possible, hoping that they go away.

“Griffin? It’s Bayman.” The landlord. Great. For a moment, JG has the wild, impulsive thought to take up the fire poker, open the door, and bash the bastard’s brains in. This urge is not acted upon. “I just came to remind you to pack your things. Everything left behind will be kept and sold off,” Bayman says through the door. “Including those chemical rigs of yours. We’ll be coming in to get that if you can’t clear it out.”  _ Oh, hell no.  _ JG still doesn’t respond. Bayman pounds at the door again. “Griffin! I came to talk to  _ you _ , not your door. If you’re in there-” 

Bayman stops speaking as he tries the doorknob, which JG had left unlocked.  _ Shit. _

“...Griffin?” Bayman, a short, ruddy-faced man with greying hair and a scowling disposition tentatively enters the seemingly empty flat. His eyes scan the overturned furniture and broken glassware. “Griffin, did someone-” His sentence is cut short as he is struck with a punch to the diaphragm, sending him doubled over and winded. How odd. No one is there. “What the-” A sharp hook to the jaw catches Bayman off guard. He staggers backwards, looking around the room frantically. Empty. “I’m- I’m coming back with coppers,” he mutters before bolting out the door. 

JG stands still for a moment. Police. They'd find him or they’d find his notes and his secret would be out there! Someone else could take credit for his research, or worse yet, replicate and revise it and leave him second best. The police would arrest him and he’d probably be messed with by other scientists who wanted a piece of the invisibility pie. If he was caught-

If.  _ If _ he was caught. 

JG has a very bad idea. 

The broken lamp spilled oil all across the rug. Perfect. JG picks his notebook off of the ground, selects a few choice other texts, and scoops Fuckstick under his arm. All of these things, cat included, are tossed out the window (luckily he lives on the ground floor of the building). JG pulls a matchbox out of the pocket of his discarded pants- won’t be needing those anymore- and strikes one before dropping it onto the rug, which erupts into flames with a  _ FWOOM _ . He spends a couple seconds admiring his work and enjoying the spot of an adrenaline rush it provided before climbing out the window, leaving the room (and hopefully the rest of the building, just to mess with that bloody landlord) to burn. 


End file.
